Center for Educational Excellence

The Center for Educational Excellence strives to implement reforms that create greater incentives for schools to respect parents and students as customers; encourage continuous quality improvement, parental involvement, and respect for teachers as professionals; and use taxpayers’ resources more efficiently.

Research Items

The Commonwealth Foundation has long advocated for an education funding formula based on student enrollment and student need. This afternoon, the Basic Education Funding Commission released a report that aligns with those objectives.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education recently released new expenditure and revenue figures for the 2013-14 school year. This memo presents trends in school spending, revenue, pension contributions, district fund balances, and property tax increases.

The industry and related jobs in drilling communities aren’t the only ones who would be harmed. All Pennsylvanians would pay the burden of a new extraction tax. About $181 million of the severance tax cost would be borne by families earning less than $100,000, according to the IFO.

Do we spend enough money on education? How much do we need to increase funding to improve results? How does Pennsylvania compare to the rest of the nation?
These questions are discussed every year during budget negotiations. We crunched the numbers, and here's what you need to know about education spending in Pennsylvania. For

Increased education spending has not led to improved academic performance. This is reflected in SAT scores and NAEP results, as well numerous studies at the state, national, and international level. To improve academic performance, policymakers should pursue a student-based funding formula, mandate relief, and expanded school choice.

In Pennsylvania, government unions enjoy a number of legal and political privileges. Among these government-granted privileges is the practice of “release time,” which permit government unions to utilize public resources to support their private operations.

Governor Wolf has wasted little time crystalizing his vision for public education—and it doesn’t look promising for families supportive of school choice. If his first few months are any indication this much is certain: Wolf is hostile to schools of choice, cozy to union interests, and wedded to the educational status quo.

Is American democracy under assault? That’s a question often asked when businesses exert political influence, unelected bureaucrats misuse power, or reporters engage in slanted storytelling. It’s time to add public-school unions to the list: These undemocratic interest groups dominate America’s urban education system to the detriment of students across the nation.

March 18, 2015, HARRISBURG, Pa.—Would you send your child to a school district that teaches 8 percent of the county’s students yet accounts for 87 percent of its student assaults? In 2012-13, York City School District tied for second-lowest in academic performance in the state. New research reveals that York City is also one of the most violent school districts i